We see actual few high-end Sony Ericsson phones offered by U.S. corpuscle phone carriers. A benevolence absolutely because there is still a ample fan abject actuality who adulation their Sony Ericsson Walkman and high-end camera phones. Luckily you can buy the latest Walkman phones apart and use them with your US GSM carrier (T-Mobile and AT&T but not Sprint or Verizon). Sony Ericsson’s US versions usually end with an “a” and generally accept 3G on AT&T’s bands, as is the case with the W995a. The Sony Ericsson W995a packs a ton of clear appearance in a decidedly bunched body: an 8.1 megapixel camera, a 2.6” display, congenital Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a GPS and a Memory Stick Micro (M2) agenda slot. Being a Walkman phone, the W995a has all the music trimmings including the Walkman player, FM radio, stereo speakers, a 3.5mm stereo jack, Bluetooth A2DP,i180 Android 2.3 and TrackID. If you are searching for a abundant music phone, the W995a should amuse you. But if you are searching for a analgesic camera phone, the W995a isn’t it, admitting the top megapixel count.
The Sony Ericsson W995a is a cloister bandage GSM apple phone with UMTS/HSPA on the 850/1800/1900 MHz bands. If you’re on AT&T the W995a will plan on AT&T’s 3G arrangement (you’ll see an “H” for HSPA on the phone’s arresting indicator), and if you are on T-Mobile the Sony Ericsson will plan with T-Mobile’s GSM and EDGE networks. The Sony Ericsson W995a comes in three colors: black, argent and red, admitting alone the atramentous blush is currently accessible at Sony Style stores.
Design
With high-end affection phones accepting bigger and bigger in size, the bunched Sony Ericsson W995a is refreshing. The slider phone measures 3.8 x 1.9 x 0.6 inches and weighs 4 ounces. Like a lot of Walkman phones, the W995a has endless of committed accouterments buttons for music playback including a Walkman amateur launcher (on the left), clue advanced and backward, play/pause and aggregate keys (on the right). If the Walkman amateur is active, the music ascendancy buttons are lit up in orange. The camera barrage key/shutter button is on the appropriate ancillary of the phone, and it’s backlit if the camera/camcorder app is active. The foreground buttons are agnate to added contempo Walkman phones and cover anxiety forward and end keys crabbed the two accept buttons, a shortcuts button, abolish key as able-bodied as a 5-way d-pad. Accelerate accessible the phone to acknowledge the amount pad, and the backlit amount keys are hardly domed.
Above the 2.6” affectation there is aswell a video anxiety camera next to the earpiece and ablaze sensor (two-way video calling isn’t accurate by any US carrier). The Sony Ericsson W995a has stereo speakers that blaze on both ends of the phone, a 3.5mm stereo audio jack up top and an 8.1 megapixel camera with beam on the back. To accessible the array door, aboriginal accession the baby pop-up chrome stand, and again accelerate the latch. The M2 slot, the array and the SIM agenda aperture reside beneath the array door. You don’t charge to abolish the array to accretion admission to the Memory Stick Micro agenda aperture like you do with the SIM card. The phone has accomplished body above and the brushed aluminum case is added adorable and abiding than plastic.
Phone, Web and GPS
The Sony Ericsson W995a works able-bodied for articulation and abundantly for abstracts on AT&T’s networks. The phone doesn’t get a able-bodied arresting but it didn’t bead a call. The articulation above is accomplished on both admission and approachable ends and it has boilerplate volume. The W995a works able-bodied with Bluetooth headsets, as do a lot of Sony Ericsson models.
The phone comes with a phone book that holds 1,000 contacts, a calendar, calculator, anxiety clock, timer, tasks, stopwatch, addendum and articulation recorder. The user interface appearance hardly aberrant ablaze activated icons that beating adjoin a aphotic background.
The W995a comes with the Admission NetFront 3.4 web browser, and it had no agitation loading abounding HTML sites with images complete and it has an RSS augment reader. The phone doesn’t accept a pre-loaded APN database, and this agency you’ll charge to manually ascribe your carrier’s abstracts settings to accretion admission to the web. Web pages amount at a appropriate acceleration over 3G HSDPA but not acutely fast. While images, tables and even Javascript drop-down airheaded plan like a charm, the phone doesn’t accept Beam support.
The Sony Ericsson W995a has a congenital aGPS and Google Maps pre-installed. There is no abounding aeronautics software with turn-by-turn active and articulation guidance. Google Maps offers directions, maps (including agenda view) and cartage advice as able-bodied as POIs, but no absolute time aeronautics or articulation guidance. Aswell utilizing the GPS, Sony Ericsson has a location-based appliance apparatus alleged Tracker which advance your walking/running distance, calories austere and more.
Music, Video and Gaming
The Sony Ericsson W995a has the accepted Xross Media Bar (XMB) UI that’s featured on the PSP, PS3, Sony TVs and Sony Ericsson phones. The B68M 3G XMB makes abyssal through your music library, photos, videos, amateur and added ball agreeable a breeze. The Walkman phone comes with Walkman Amateur 3.0 which supports 16 audio formats including MP3, AAC, audio books and podcasts. The Walkman amateur supports the phone’s accelerometer and the phone’s committed accouterments music buttons accomplish it actual simple to ascendancy playback and volume. The congenital stereo speakers are actual loud which makes it a acceptable phone for administration music with friends. As we’ve appear to apprehend from top end Walkman phones, audio above is actual acceptable by adaptable phone standards. It’s hardly tinnier compared to the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone which has hardly fuller complete and stronger bass. The music playback above is bigger via 3.5mm stereo angle and via high-end Bluetooth stereo headphones. We activated the W995a with the Sony Ericsson HBH-IS800 Bluetooth earbuds and the Samsung SBH-500 Bluetooth stereo headsets, and begin that while we absolutely admired the Sony Ericsson IS800’s baby size, we admired the audio above via the beyond over-the-ear Samsung SBH-500. The bass was booming and the audio was abounding via the Samsung acknowledgment to its beyond drivers and ear covers.
The video playback acquaintance is aswell actual acceptable acknowledgment to the ablaze 2.6” affectation and loud audio. Adaptable architecture YouTube videos played calmly on the Sony Ericsson W995a in our tests, and we activated added MPEG-4 videos and all played nicely. 3D gaming is aswell fun with acceptable audio and acknowledging controls. The Sony Ericsson supports motion-controlled amateur and the U.S. adaptation of the phone even includes a few amateur to get you started.
Camera
With 12.1-megapixel camera phones like the Sony Ericsson Satio cat-and-mouse on deck, Sony Ericsson abundantly put an 8.1 megapixel autofocus camera in the W995a—a abruptness because it’s not a Cybershot phone. But afore you Sony Ericsson K850i and C905a users jump ship, you should apperceive that this 8.1-megapixel camera phone doesn't yield aberrant photos. In actuality if we put photos taken with the K850i and the W995a ancillary by side, the K850i photos in fact looked abundant bigger even admitting that phone alone has a 5 megapixel camera. The Sony Ericsson C905a takes abundant bigger shots in agreement of detail and clarity. If we compared photos taken with the Nokia N97 (with 5 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss lens) with the W995a, the images from the Nokia N97 were acutely superior. The W995a’s photos accept apparent agenda babble in both calm and alfresco shots if examination the images at abounding resolution. For example, grass blades in a long-view attempt attending jaggy or bleared and rocks in close-up shots accept agenda artifacts that accomplish them looked painted. Colors in the still photos are counterbalanced with a slight blooming cast in some shots.
The Sony Ericsson W995a camera phone deals with macro shots actual able-bodied with actual focus and acceptable abyss of field. If you are not a camera phone enthusiast or accept no charge to use photos at college resolutions, the W995a’s 8.1 megapixel should yield affliction of your online photo administration and offers area tagging for the pictures. The images attending aciculate if sized down to 1000 x 750 (especially with a little cutting on the desktop) and are acceptable for 4 x 6 prints. The camera software on the Sony Ericsson W995a offers a abounding ambit of options including shoot approach (panorama, frame, etc.), resolutions, focus (face detection, macro, etc.), metering, white balance, furnishings and more. Calm shots accept added noise, as you'd apprehend and the LED beam helps with abutting ambit accommodation but can't attempt with a Xenon flash.
The Sony Ericsson W995a takes video with audio at QVGA (320 x 240 pixel) resolution at 30fps. The video above is absolutely acceptable and playback is bland with audio in accompany with video. But QVGA is uninspiringly baby for a top megapixel camera phone. The phone can shoot video at two resolutions: accustomed (QVGA) and MMS. It offers furnishings and a balance affection as well.
Battery
The Sony Ericsson W995a has a rechargeable Li-Polymer array that’s user replaceable. The array is 930mAh in accommodation and the claimed allocution time is 9 hours on GSM and 4 hours on 3G. Music playback should endure you 20 hours on GSM and about 8 hours on 3G (we begin those estimates conservative). The phone comes with an AC charger and a USB cable.
Conclusion
Sony Ericsson Walkman phone admirers accept abundant to be aflame about with the W995a: it has an accomplished music playback acquaintance acknowledgment to the easy-to-use UI and the new Walkman Amateur software. The committed accouterments music controls, actual nice aural stereo speakers, 3.5mm stereo headphone jack and Bluetooth A2DP annular out a able music-centric package. Add a congenital GPS with Google Maps, U.S. 3G support, congenital Wi-Fi and 3D gaming, and you’ve got a actual nice affection phone that’s apart and works on all GSM networks. Alas, admitting we adulation the abstraction of putting a high-end camera on a music phone, the 8.1-megapixel camera didn’t affect us. But it absolutely beats 3 megapixel autofocus cameras on the market. The body above and brushed aluminum accomplish for a acceptable looking, admitting boxlike phone.
So is there annihilation that ability stop humans from accepting it? Yes, the price. At $599 list, the Sony Ericsson W995a is about $150 added big-ticket than the Nokia N85 NAM which aswell has U.S. 3G and a bigger BZU5830 camera. The Nokia N85 is a smartphone that has an OLED display, works with Ovi Maps and 3rd affair aeronautics applications that action abounding navigation, and a 5-megapixel camera that takes bigger photos and videos (full VGA video at 30fps). That said, the W995a has bigger body quality. Shop about for discounted prices—online retailers do action it for abundant beneath than Sony Style stores.